A real example of why Facebook privacy is a problem

I started hanging out at a place called GitHub where developers hang out “virtually”. I am currently working on a Crisis Commons project to document the Gulf Coast Oil Spill but distractions happen.

Oh well…

I was engrossed in Ruby-on-Rails then I stumbled on a web app built by Will Moffat, Peter Burns and James Home (…though I have no idea if that’s Will, Peter or James’ real names!) called OpenBook which helps harvests unprotected information that people post on their Facebook pages. Let’s just call it an enhanced search tool for Facebook.

OpenBook is a cool enhanced Facebook search tool experiment to find stuff you don’t want people to find out about you

WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!!!

Here’s a sample URL search: http://bit.ly/bWcNvx Try searching for things about people whether they like it or not! The site’s actual URL is: http://youropenbook.org/. The cool thing about the application is you DO NOT have to be a Facebook member or logged in to Facebook for OpenBook to work.

OpenBook is a powerful statement and illustration for why privacy matters.

Perhaps the fault lies with the people who carelessly post potentially embarrassing information about themselves but one cannot deny possible negative repercussions. As employers use the Internet to do background checks and colleges scouring information about potential new students, one cannot be too cavalier about their public or private information.